Dr MJ du Plessis, Reformed Church Bellville 20 June 2004 (morning) NIV

REFORMED CHURCH BELLVILLE: SUNDAY SERMON 20 JUNE 2004 MORNING SERVICE

Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth. Beloved grace and peace be to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, through the mighty working of God the Holy Spirit.
Amen

Psalm of Praise: 31:1+2+6
Confession of faith: Nicea
Law
Psalm: 38:17
Prayer
[Baptism - Psalm: 105:5]
Scripture: 1 Peter 5
Text: 1 Peter 5:8

“Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walks about, seeking whom he may devour."

We are dealing here with one of the most difficult trials in our life – the Satan and his attacks on us. He strikes everywhere and in the most diverse ways.

Figuratively I can say to you that Satan has as many faces as there are opportunities in each person's life. Sometimes he attacks us personally.
On other occasions he is more devious and uses people and circumstances and illness, stress and whatever comes to hand to damage us and our faith.

In this sermon we look at the following:

1.   Who made the devil evil?
2.   The devil's targets.
3.   The devil and our spiritual life.

1.   Who made the devil evil?

Some people believe that the devil existed from the beginning, but that is not the case. The devil is a creature like us – the Lord created him. The only Being that existed from the beginning is the Lord alone.

The devil is an angel who was created with exceedingly great abilities. In some way he became evil and rebelled against the Lord.

The devil is a complex and powerful creature who does great evil among mankind, animals and in nature.
He is somebody to be wary of because he seduces us not only to commit sin so that we thereby disgrace the Lord and anger Him.
He also destroys us, because he hates us. He wants to get all into his power in order to destroy it.

Let us consider some passages in the Bible which deal with the devil, because when we see the devil as the Lord sees him we shall keep away from the devil and his works because in the Lord's revelation we shall see that there is no glory in the work of the devil.

The first time we read of the devil in the Bible is when in the beginning he approaches Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden. He seduced these two people with the temptation to disobey God.

When the devil approached Adam and Eve he had already rebelled against the Lord.
The Bible does not tell us much about the devil's rebellion.

There is a good reason for this.

The purpose of the Bible is not to teach us where all our misery came from because the Bible is not a book about sin.
The Bible is the revelation of the glory of God and of His salvation of mankind. The Bible teaches us that God saves us in Christ and that he is almighty and will destroy at the end of time all evil.

We have some idea of the nature of the fall into sin in heaven because we read in John 8:44 that the devil was a murderer from the beginning and that there is no truth in him. He is a liar and the father of lies. Accordingly he is in direct opposition to God. It is also written in 1 John 3:8 that the devil sins from the beginning.

Based on these passages Calvin says that the evil in the devil is of his own making because he rebelled against the Lord.
The Lord did not create the devil evil. He became evil. Because it is written here in the bible (John 8:44) that when the devil speaks a lie he speaks of his own, we cannot hold the Lord responsible for his evil.
We should listen carefully to this statement by the Lord for it applies to us as well. When we sin we cannot blame the Lord for it. You cannot sin and say it was the will of God because He planned everything.
In His Plan the Lord calls you to obedience and He commands you to refrain from doing evil.

The devil broke away from the truth and therefore he is evil.

He is now unable to find the truth again. We must guard against following this path ourselves!
People who are true believers find the devil's nature abhorent. This will encourage us to serve the Lord in all His glory and help us to be better worshippers.

2. The devil's targets

The devil's target is broad. He directs himself at all that the Lord created in order to destroy it. He is like a virus that takes over the whole body and kills it.

The devil did not sin alone. The first creatures he targeted were the angels. He dragged a whole number of angels down with him in his fall.
Both Peter and Jude (2 Peter 2:4 and Jude 6) refer to this and tell us that there are angels who left their first estate, in which they were created by God. They are not spared. They left their own habitation and are rejected by God forever and cannot be saved.

The different names with which the Bible refers to Satan are noteworthy. In two places in the Bible Satan is called the god and the prince of this world.

One passage is John 12:31 where the devil is called "the prince of this world". It is said here that the Lord Jesus shall drive the devil out of this world at the Last Judgment.
Another passage is 2 Corinthians 4:3-4 where he is called the god of this age "And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. The god of this age has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God."
Here it is written that the devil – the god of this age (or god of this world in other translations) – has made it his business to make it impossible for people to understand the gospel so that they remain unbelievers. He prevents them from seeing God's glory.
The same appears in Ephesians 2:2 where he is called the ruler of the kingdom of the air. He is the spirit who works disobedience in the unbelievers. The devil has powers with which he can attack people and make them disobedient.
That is why Peter writes that the devil prowls around on earth like a roaring lion looking to devour whoever crosses his path.

You must know that this enemy is crafty. He is very powerful and intelligent and very shrewd. He falsifies all God's revelations so that the unbelievers and the weak believers cannot distinguish the true revelation from the false.

All his actions on earth are aimed at destroying the church and its members.
The devil is opposed to all righteousness. He interferes in the relationships between people. He causes strife in marriages which cause divorce. He destroys the education by parents of their children. He seduces the children. He encourages lechery. He cripples our sense of truthfulness.

He works against us in our faith. He tries to trouble our relationship with God.

He makes us unbelievers, he causes us to be lax in our worship. He twists our mind so that we refuse to accept the Word of God.
He causes us to be spiritually stupid so that we cannot and do not want to understand God's revelation so that we too rise up against the Lord.

This may appear to you to be a complicated process but the devil works simply.

All that he does is to make us persist in our sins. He accustoms us to wrongfulness and lets us think out all sorts of reasons why we can continue doing wrong. He knows that in the end God is angered by such a person.
The devil also uses our social circumstances. He makes people become so dissatisfied with their condition in life that they rise up and do all sorts of foolish things. We see this occurring around us.
The devil makes people become so fearful that out of desperation they try to take God's plan into their own hands. He causes us to believe in hatred and violence as the gospel of salvation and that murder and war are the only way to ensure one's future. The devil causes people to mistrust one another. He also causes people to become so bad that they are untrustworthy.

Each one of us must be wary of these things.

The devil wants the true believers to break up into discord. He wants the church of the Lord to fall apart. He does everything with and through hatred. He cannot bear God and he cannot bear us. Therefore he tries to influence us in our desires and mind and conduct to do wrong.

Brothers and sisters in the blood of Christ – we must be alert!

When we sin we injure the will of God and His honour. These are the works of the devil and if we persist in our sins we exchange the image of the glory of God for that of the devil.
The image of the devil is monstrous – eventually our sins catch up with us – although it appears initially that sin is profitable for us. Eventually the end of sin is not so advantageous!

3. The devil and our faith

There is another matter I must warn you of. That is politics and the powers it contains.

The book Revelation warns us that the political spirit is one of the mightiest weapons used by the anti-christ in the last days. We have examples in the Bible where the Lord tells us how Satan exploits politics. Do not let your political convictions interfere in the church of the Lord.
The example to which I wish to refer you is 1 Kings 22. We read in 1 Kings 22: 20 of a political matter in which a decision about war was to be taken. The Lord decided that Ahab should go to war and be killed. The Lord also said that Ahab was to be enticed into going to war.
The devil then offered to become a lying spirit in the mouths of all Ahab's prophets and the Lord told him to do it.

Look carefully at what is written here – the prophets misled the king.

They told him that the would be victorious and blessed by the Lord (1 Kings 22 v 12) but the Lord wished to use this battle as a means of punishment for their sins.
In this day we would say that the spiritual leaders misinterpreted the Bible and did not tell the government what the Lord truly wants to say.

The devil is not now working for the first time.

In Old Testament he was already at work. He was the evil spirit that entered Saul.
Psalm 78:43-49 tells that the Lord brought the plagues on Egypt by a band of destroying angels. The devil and his angels are used by the Lord to teach an unbelieving people. They defile everything with their evil.

Satan puts himself in direct opposition to Christ.

As Jesus is the Leader of the church so Satan is the Leader of the powers of hell.
In 1 John 3:8 it is written that they are in opposition. The devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil's work.

The Satan also enters the church. And he presents himself as Jesus Christ.

He arrogates the name of the Lord Jesus to himself and uses the Bible to cause people to fall into false doctrine so that God can be angered and punish them.
See Jesus' own words in Mark 13. He warns us that this will happen and calls on us to be watchful and not to be deceived.

In our text it is written that the devil hunts us like a roaring lion, and are we warned to be sober and to be vigilant.

The Lord repeats to us the warning He gave Adam – Rule, that is take care! But Adam did not.

The Lord now reveals to us who the devil is and how he operates. And then the Lord tells us to be sober.
That means we must think and distinguish. We must not act blindly.

The devil's rebellion against God is rooted in his own arrogance. He considered his own opinion higher than the will and commands of the Lord.

The end of this is hell and all its terrors.
Accordingly the Lord tells us in Ephesians 6:12 that our struggle is not against flesh and blood but against the rulers, the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

We should not sit back and assume that because the devil was beaten he is no longer a threat.

The devil is wily and always on the prowl.
No opportunity to harm you is overlooked, he will use every chance he has to seduce you to do wrong.

But this need not cause us to panic because we are equipped to deal with the devil.

The birth, life and death, His crucifixion and resurrection and ascension to heaven of our Lord Jesus was all aimed at doing battle with the devil on his own ground and beating him. The Lord Jesus lived a life of struggle with the devil so that he could be victorious over him in our stead.
When he was tempted by the devil in the desert He never succumbed to his wiles and false arguments. He destroyed the power of death, because with His Godly power He arose from the dead in His body.
Death was the devil's mightiest weapon. After Jesus' resurrection the devil lost it as it was destroyed by the Lord Jesus' rising from death.

After the ascension the Lord sent us His Holy Spirit to warn us against the devil.

The work of the Holy Spirit is directly opposed to that of the devil – the devil wants to destroy us with hatred.
The Holy Spirit wants to save us with love.
The Holy Spirit keeps us watchful. He equips us with the ability to distinguish so that we can recognise the work of the devil. He gives us insight so that we can see where the devil falsifies God's revelation. And He confirms the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the power of God to us so that we can be victorious over the devil's onslaughts.

Brothers and sisters, be each moment alive to what the devil may put in your way. We are now living in the days of which the Lord tells us that the devil prowls like a roaring lion to devour whatever he finds.

Remember that his ultimate target is the church, the true believers, of the Lord. It is us that he wants to destroy.
How ever attractive sin may appear to us – know that the devil seeks to kill us with it. Know that whatever apparent advantage sin may offer you on earth, it leads to our destruction now and forever.

Know also that you as Christians are victors in Jesus Christ the Lord. Live then like victors because you are not losers against hell and its leader. You bear the name of your Lord, property of the Father, the Son and God the Holy Spirit.

Amen

Closing prayer
Closing Psalm 71:13

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God the Father and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

Amen

Dr MJ du Plessis, Reformed Church Bellville
20 June 2004 (morning)
NIV